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Dubia Care, Proper water crystals?

Yesterday I picked up another can of 'Soil Moist' water crystals which I have been using as a source of water for my dubia colony. Well today I got around to throw another cup in for them as they had been without a water source for quite some time. I noticed a crap load of them dead around where I put the crystals.. I'm curious to if there is a specific water crystal I should be using? I never really noticed this before.. And I have been using the same crystals for awhile without any effect to my geckos.. I'm not sure if being without water took the toll on some that tried to eat the crystals or what.

No water is bad when it comes to dubias since they are a tropical roach. A constant water supply and misting is needed. I use a little tray with some cotton balls on it and then fill the cotten with water. It kinda holds the water for you and allows even the smallest roach to drink. BE SURE to change them out before they start changing yellow or you will find more dead dubias.

I never used water crystals or anything else like that in my colony. All I did was wet down the food (chicken feed) when feeding days came around and they ate every scrap. My colony was massive and thriving too and I had almost no dead unless it was from old age. I pretty much offered up what they would eat over night twice a week. This cut down on the funk and dead and dying because the setup stayed pretty clean. From 200 to 20,000+ in a few years.

Are you certain they are dead, or maybe they are just playing "dead"? They do tend to remain motionless for awhile if they sense danger. I often find lots of nymphs in the water crystal dish but so far no confirmed dead. The only dead roaches I have encountered so far in my bin are the old age variety like talken mentioned.

I might have to try the cotton balls idea. I am gonna vote out the misting, I don't want mold.

And yes they are stone dead. Maybe it was just at an odd time and some of the oldies died. I'm going to take a closer look at the bin tomorrow.

I never once had mold in my setup from misting. On the days there was no food present I would lightly mist the bottom of the setup (not the hide) and they would all come out to drink from the plastic. They are very hardy roaches.

Cotton balls would stand a far greater chance of growing mold and harboring bacteria than misting would imo. Cotton balls are pretty much just like water crystals, a constant source of moisture for funk to gather on.

Here was my colony on a day I fed them some alfalfa and corn (you can see the corn is GONE lol) along with a picture with the babies I was getting every month. All food not eaten over night was removed but most of the time there was little to nothing left. This kept the setup clean and stink free with no mold or mites to be found for miles.

I first read this thread while I was under going allergy testing this morning. Well, it turns out I am allergic to: roaches, my 2 dogs, my 3 cats, oak trees, yeast and 12 different types of molds. Guess my geckos and cham will never get to try a roach now

Yep, I almost died because of my roaches before I found out I was allergic to them. I had several trips to the ER because I was having such a hard time breathing. Id wake up in the middle of the night in a panic trying to gasp for air. The really scary part is I did not have a single problem with them for the first 2-3 years. But after that it was really bad. It took all that time to build up in my system and cause a reaction. $1000s of dollars later in medical expenses, the day I got rid of the roaches my breathing improved 10 fold and kept getting better over the next few weeks until eventually it was like normal again.

also as a side note, water crystals are toxic to reptiles and since roaches do enjoy hiding under things, if the water crystals stick to them, and dry, then you feed that little bug to your reptiles you can infact make them sick. And for obvious reasons as Ryan stated, cotten balls and sponges really should be avoided. Better choices are a misting, fresh fruit and veggies, and mixed CGD. And the CGD doesnt even need to be in a bowl, seriously you can just pour it on the bottom of their container and by morning there will be no evidence of it at all.